Antique & Classic Cars Blog

At the beginning of Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane (Welles’ thinly veiled sendup of performance guru George Hurst) mumbles “FourSpeed” as the shift ball from a Competition Plus shifter rolls down a shadowy staircase in San Simian, Hurst’s Detroit mansion.

While the film was a flop, the enigmatic opening piqued the interest of moviegoing drivers and put Hurst’s performance industries on the map. His Competition Plus became the racer’s standard, slotting more gears than shifters by Billy Wilder, John Huston and Alfred Hitchcock combined.

Needless to say, when an NOS Competition Plus turned up on eBay, I had to have it. True, it was made for a ‘66 Chevelle with Saginaw transmission, neither of which I had, but this one came with the original box! A reckless bid and she was mine.

Fortunately, I later came upon a Borg Warner T10, which sort of looks like a Saginaw and was rare and cool and sure to fit a 215-V8-powered TR6. Odds that the Hurst would bolt up to this transmission were pretty good. We’ll soon see, given that that gearbox is 99% rebuilt….

(It’s been a while since I’ve seen Citizen Kane, so some of the details above may be off.)

This entry was posted on Friday, February 1st, 2008 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Car parts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.